


Suffering

by varooooom



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:09:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve learns the true meaning of Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suffering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sterlynsilverrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlynsilverrose/gifts).



> My darling Mari sent me the picture of the Christmas tree linked below and asked for horrible Christmas shenanigans. Madness ensued. This one's for you, bee! ♥

When Steve, Bucky, and Sam get back to the Tower from their morning run, it's already set up and twinkling right in the middle of the living room. Steve and Bucky stare in silence with varying degrees of bewilderment and disgust ( at least on Bucky's part ), but Sam seems overly delighted.

Or he would, if he could catch his breath.

"Is that - is," he starts, wheezing a little between words. "Did he - ?"

"Yes, he did," Steve intones with disdain. Bucky scoffs.

"It looks like my fucking toothpaste," and when Steve tilts his head to the left, arms folded over his chest - yeah. [It kinda does](http://i.imgur.com/z377t7s.jpg). Sam collapses with laughter and Steve sighs.

Goddammit, Tony Stark.

* * *

They consider taking it down for all of ten seconds before Sam says he is ' _literally about to die, I hate you guys so fucking much_ ', and they decide to deal with it later. Showers first, some food if Sam doesn't decide to abandon them for better company with Pepper and leave Steve and Bucky to cook for themselves ( which means they drink protein shakes and regret making Sam run the stairs with them ), and _then_ they can tackle the eyesore taking up half of Steve's floor.

Bucky seems all too ready to forget it even exists, already stripped down to his briefs by the time they get to the bedroom. Steve's stopped questioning how he undresses so quickly or where exactly his clothes wind up, as long as they make it into the wash on laundry day; he's had to make it abundantly clear that stealing Steve's entire wardrobe isn't ' _fair payment_ ' for Bucky forcing his old clothes on him when they were kids. They had to share socks once and that is two times too many.

Still. The tree weighs on him, and it isn't until hot water and Bucky's teeth have turned Steve's skin red that he figures it out.

"Oh, for the love of -" he groans. The sound of his head thunking back against the shower wall only makes Bucky pause around Steve's collarbone for a fraction of a second.

"Hm," Bucky asks, clearly uninterested. Steve sighs.

"I think Tony's trying to be funny," he says, to which Bucky responds with another noncommittal hum and a thigh between Steve's legs. It's a good distraction, a really - really good distraction, but. Seriously, the thing almost reaches the unnecessarily high ceiling. "It's red, white, and blue," he continues, pushing gently at Bucky's right shoulder.

He finally relents with an irritated huff and a growled, "So?"

" _So_ ," Steve chokes when Bucky decides to be an _asshole_ and start rolling his hips against him. He pushes at both shoulders this time, getting Bucky to actually look at him with only one roll of his eyes. Steve continues with an imperative stare, trying to impress how important this revelation is, "Everyone that's served in the military lives on this floor."

Bucky widens his eyes - comically - and gives a deadpanned ' _Hooah_ ' before dropping to his knees and making Steve forget about the stupid tree for awhile.

* * *

Steve takes a little bit longer to recompose himself and leave the bedroom in search of food, but by the time he gets to the kitchen, disaster has already struck. Sam obviously decided to stick around, because there are fresh waffles on the table and Bucky is expertly drenched in syrup and also there are sweaters. A whole pile of them on the table, not including the one Bucky is wearing.

"What is this?" he asks warily, already knowing that the answer is going to be awful.

"What is what," Bucky deadpans around a mouthful of his own fingers. Steve's caught between a low curl of arousal at the suggestive gesture and wanting to smack him in the back of the head for being gross. Water might not be able to rust his hand but Steve's not sure syrup won't at least make it sticky for the rest of always, and he's not going to be the one to ask Tony to clean it.

He opts for slapping him in the back of the head.

"The sweaters, you jackass." He picks up the one on the top of the pile and cringes; there was a time when Steve had trouble picking out certain colors in the rainbow, just a few spectrums that didn't quite process the same way as everyone else in the world. Idly, and without malice, he wonders if whoever designed this was colorblind too.

"They're warm," is all Bucky says as he blatantly squeezes more syrup directly onto his fingers. The sideways glance from head to toe makes Steve feel warm all over, especially with Bucky still being crude and sucking off his index finger, and then Bucky smirks. "'sides, you make that face every time you look at it."

Steve frowns. "What face?" On reflex, he looks up to the tree still sitting pretty five feet away and wrinkles his nose.

" _That_ face," Bucky grins. He gets up to go wash off his hands ( _thank God_ ), and Steve can finally see in full just how terrible the sweater Bucky chose is. 

There are snowflakes and mistletoe patterned along the bottom and the collar, all printed in what looks like the same horribly pixelated quality of the pictures Tony sends him under the impression that Steve doesn't know that high resolution pictures exist. The sweater itself is a charcoal grey, the front splattered with random baubles and candy-canes and Christmas ornaments, but the back is what makes Steve want to hit him again.

They printed his shield, fake brown straps across the shoulders and all - but in the same gross off-colors as the sort of red, white, and teal-blue Christmas tree behind him. The star at the center is a vaguely star-shaped snowflake.

 _Goddammit, Tony Stark_.

"Take it off," Steve demands.

Bucky makes a low whistle, "Getting frisky already, Cap? I thought we debunked that super-soldier recovery time as just a part of Sam's weird fantasies."

" _Buck_ , you jerk," Steve grouses, embarrassingly close to outright _whining_. Bucky pretends he can't hear him over the sound of the faucet running, which is a complete lie when they can hear each other whispering across a room, so Steve decides to take matters into his own hands. Literally.

They're still wrestling on the kitchen floor, water running wastefully down the drain without them, by the time Sam gets back. Where he went becomes obvious the second he's within sight, and along with him, an equally as hideous sweater with Steve's uniform printed in red, white, and _green_ and a full set of fake reindeer antlers on his head. He's even got a rubber red nose on. Steve wants to die, or alternatively lock himself in his bedroom until New Years.

"Stop your weird shit and help me with all this," Sam says nonchalantly, not even phased by finding them behaving like children after too long in their company. Steve lets his whole body go slack so that he can lay on the ground and stare up at the ceiling in despair.

"I hate all of you," he declares loudly. They both ignore him as Bucky gets up to turn off the sink and help Sam with what appears to be several bags of more Christmas decorations in the same color scheme. Steve doesn't know what he did to deserve this, but he's going to keep on blaming Tony.

* * *

"I heard someone's been misbehaving," Natasha says by way of greeting. All three of them startle at her sudden appearance; she's been out of the country for awhile doing something-or-other for Fury and apparently decided it wasn't worth letting them know she was coming back home.

The real surprise, though, is her Santa outfit. It ( blessedly ) forgoes the same eyesore that is the rest of Steve's floor, sticking to the more traditional red and white, but it wouldn't be Natasha if it weren't also slightly threatening. The dress is fitted to her curves in a dark red that suits her codename; the skirt flares out with a fluffy white trim that isn't anywhere near long enough to be decent; her legs are covered with black stockings and knee-high black boots that look like a combination of stilettos and combat boots. Sam gives a low whistle and Bucky won't stop staring. Steve's stuck on the Santa hat sat primly on her curled hair and the same dark red smirk that tells him she might actually be the one to blame for all of this.

"I'm not doing naughty list roleplay with you, Nat," he tells her almost petulantly, because if anyone's supposedly 'misbehaving' around here, it's probably him. He stalwartly refuses to give in to their weird mockery of him and the holiday.

Natasha's eyebrow raises and he immediately knows she'll be having none of that. Two weeks of holding out and this is how he dies. Steve sinks into the couch and prays for mercy.

* * *

When he stumbles out of Nat's room for breakfast the next morning, bleary eyed with exhaustion and defeat, Bucky and Sam pause from where they'd been ignoring their pancakes in favor of licking still more syrup off of each other. It takes them a second to register the sight of him in a fuzzy sweater that's off-green with a printed red collar lined with white fluff, the long sleeves red and white striped with more white fluff on the cuffs. A pixelated belt is printed across his hips with a teal-blue version of his shield as the buckle, and Natasha's Santa hat is drooping off the side of his head. Steve is too tired to even roll his eyes when Bucky bursts out laughing.

"Hallelujah," Sam cries gleefully, "It's a Christmas miracle."

Natasha appears in the doorway wearing only one of the spare ugly sweaters with a reindeer's face happily printed on the front, arms folded across her chest and smirking proudly, "Merry Christmas, boys."

Steve sighs and sits down to eat ten pancakes that Bucky helpfully soaks through with syrup. "Sure," he says lamely, "Merry Christmas."


End file.
